Announcements

As 2018 is coming closer we have posted everything you need to know about our next Eurobricks Event. You can find all information and the sign-up topic in our event forum.
Eurobricks Event 2018 - Information Topic

Special Tags 1

Special Tags 2

Special Tags 3

Special Tags 4

Special Tags 5

Special Tags 6

Country flag

A few days ago, I made a decision. I've tried to build big houses, buildings and trains and have never been satisfied. I and new pieces and colors doesn't match and when I am collecting 12v trains and buildings and was a kid in the 80s it was actually a pretty easy decision: My mocs will look as they are taken from a LEGO catalogue from 1982-86.
So, here is my first try. The brand new 7833 Shell terminal from 1984! It's still only build digitally, but I think I'm going to buy the pieces to build it in real, too!
Any ideas and thoughts are welcome. Be mercyful :-)
http://tydje.se/lego/7833/7833-2.jpg
http://tydje.se/lego/7833/7833-3.jpg

Floka's Fine Fabrics is a new addition to the market area of Ruadh. Though she's planning an expansion, proprietress Floka is currently using the building and yard as a showing space for the dyed linens and textiles she imports from her family in Mitgardia. Mitgardian cloth, especially dyed cloth, is highly prized throughout Kaliphlin and the thicker, woolier fabrics are the perfect solution to cold desert nights.
You can't go very far in Ruadh without stumbling across artists at work. Here, a husband and wife practice a heady mix of Queenscross lyre and Rakathi calligraphy.
So far, Floka has been able to manage with just the warehouse space and outdoor racking available to her. Though theft is not much of a problem in Ruadh, Floka worries that it will be as the village grows. If she keeps doing so well, she'll be too nervous to carry the day's earnings on her person back to her home where it is stored in a strongbox. Thankfully, her request for a foot patrol above the shop was approved.
Floka tries her best to stock as many colors and styles as possible.
Here comes a customer. Floka may look Kaliphlinite after long years away from home, but she's Mitgardian down to her bones. Even at her age, she lugs a hefty roll of dyed wool in preparation for a visiting noble's order. The strain barely shows in the corner of her mouth.
The second of my Ruadh builds! Not as complex or difficult as the amphitheater, but nontheless plenty of fun. This pretty much exhausts my tan which is too bad as I'd like to do something more extensive in Kali at some point.
Things I notice about this build that I'd fix next time would be: a better overhead pic as I did a nice carpeting thing on the roof in bright green and purple. I'd also remove the wooden plank flooring inside Floka's shop in favor of another carpety build, perhaps a cheese mosaic or something. I was not that ambitious this time around. Finally, I should have put in supports or otherwise bulked up the catwalk above the cloth racks. Looks a little flimsy as is.
Anyway, thanks for looking! It's good to be back building GoH!

The Fondorian at the reception told us his employer was inspecting his mine. The officer I accompany just had to lower his eyebrows a bit to convey he was in a hurry. One of the mine’s hover platforms was assigned to us promptly. Your average platform. Average enough for me to pilot it. I was brought to make sure we didn’t need any unwanted guests. That would only complicate things.
So now I’m flying this primitive platform around on this primitive facility. This place where they never end scraping the skin of the planet, to dump it in great piles, in search of whatever preciousness they may find. Because war’s hunger for construction materials is never satisfied. So they dig, dump and search. No need for fancy, clean equipment. The planet doesn’t charge tax for keeping it clean anyway…
Between this chain of dusty mountains, inhabited by dirty excavators and with conveyors for trees, a bold white figure stands out. This vision of neatness in all of this toxic chaos. The officer has no doubt is the boss of this mine, inspecting the premises. We’re about in hearing range.
[soNE Ep. VI] 2 - Worse than war by Bert.VR, on Flickr
“The bounty hunter Boba Fett frequents this place”
It wasn’t even a question.
“Tell us what you know of him”
“No one knows him. How could I help my friends of the Empire?”
“Tell us everything, or we’ll make this official”
The Fondorian seems the kind of businessman to understand what this implies.
“Well, I don’t know him. Not beyond the point of his business. I can’t really say he works for me, but let me say I give him… inspiration. From time to time, when my sales aren’t increasing, I give him ideas what to do. War is great for business, you know. Because war brings fear, and fear brings the want for protection. And for that, you need materials. But war seems such a far-off thing for some people. The fear disappears. The money disappears. So we need to get war back to those people”
“And that’s what you need the bounty hunter for”
“He eliminates certain well-chosen targets. He destroyers certain facilities. But that’s something every bounty hunter can do. But to make the people believe it were the Rebels, you need the best. You need the best to frighten people with their own illusions, to make them feel unsafe, to make them long for protection, to make them buy, whether they really need it or not.
There’s nothing wrong with a bit of terror. On the contrary. It’s good for commerce. And it keeps people awake, always on the lookout for the enemy. And it keeps people asleep, not complaining – this world is perfect, as long as they keep those Rebels outside. That’s why you Imperials let me do this off the books. You’ve known this for ages. But why this sudden interest?”
“The bounty hunter was here recently. For a job of you”
“People in the junkyards of Ord Mantell seem to think they have nothing to lose. They think everything there has been destroyed already. It was time to make them see that differently. And the loss of a concurrent won’t hurt business”
These last words can only faintly be heard from the platform I’m steering back to our ship. But that doesn’t stop me of feeling a deep disgust. Of this man in whose mind resonates only the vocabulary of commerce. It’s not about the planet he is poisoning, it’s about the resources. It’s not about the fear people experience, it’s about what makes them hunger for those resources. Using war as a lucrative selling strategy. Using terror as marketing. There are no casualties, only losses of clients. I thought war was the worst thing imaginable. But people fighting a war are no villains. They want to end the war as soon as possible, in their favour. They are no villains compared to these… They don’t want the war to end. They want it to go on, to be everywhere, to destruct everything as long as it is profitable. This is not a human. This is not even a machine.
But these villains could be stopped. If there was no cause, if there were no means to accomplish their goals. War gives them the ideas. And scum like bounty hunters, like Boba Fett, give them the opportunity. He doesn’t question what he’s doing. He can say he’s just the blaster in another’s hand. And he is right. The blaster never questions the actions of that hand. The killing is not his responsibility. But the blaster gave every one the opportunity to murder without having the need of the courage to look into the victims eyes. The blaster invites the user to use it, to kill. And so it is with the bounty hunter. The killer doesn’t even have to see his victim, he never has to touch a weapon. Boba Fett can say he hasn’t killed a soul in his life. But he offers the possibility. And should he who offers the opportunity be a bit less despicable than he who takes it?
I never liked the bounty hunter, but now I’m utterly disgusted by him.
_____________
LDD File to be found here.
I really wanted to go for a different side of Fondor for this one, vast and dirty. I had a lot of fun with the bucket conveyor and the platforms, but the heap of dirt proved to be very difficult, both due to the shape and to the limited amount of bricks in dark orange. I hope you like the way it turned out (with a lot of studs!). It was quite impossible to contain it to the 16x16 base, so I hope the judges are okay with a one stud overhang of some plates.
I also had to make the decorations for the torsos of the officer and the pilot. They can be found in this album, if anyone would want to use them for their renders.
I hope you like this installment! Comments are always welcome!

Originally built in Sand Red by my father in the early 2000's, this industrial building is one of my dad's biggest creations. I modified it and brought it up to my specifications... okay, I whinged it from looking at the model. I took some liberties, (& made some mistakes) with the original model. I have redone the MOC in easier-to-buy white, with black window frames.
This factory produces automobiles, and they are loaded onto three-level auto racks for transport around the country or around the globe. They are shuffled around the loading dock by a General Electric 44 ton diesel switcher in matching color scheme to the factory. The whole ensemble is owned by the OGEL automotive group, a division of Brickster Incorporated.
The tracks side. The factory was originally built in sand red but since this color is extremely expensive and hard to find, I used white with modern black window frames instead.
This end of the factory has a ladder to the top of the smokestack. Their is also a small water tower on top of the roof as well.
Inside view, with the detachable roof removed. Dad never finished this part, and probably never will. The loading doors do open, and were modified from the original arched doors as they couldn't fit a forklift... then again, these doors might not either!
This diesel engine is modeled after the GE 44 ton switcher locomotive. Why 44 tons, you may ask? I give you the answer from the Wikipedia article on this loco type:
This locomotive's specific 44-short ton weight was directly related to one of the efficiencies the new diesel locomotives offered compared to their steam counterparts: reduced labor intensity. In the 1940s, the steam to diesel transition was in its infancy in North America, and railroad unions were trying to protect the locomotive fireman jobs that were redundant with diesel units. One measure taken to this end was the 1937 so-called "90,000 Pound Rule" : a stipulation that locomotives weighing 90,000 pounds (41,000 kg) – 45 short tons – or more required a fireman in addition to an engineer on common carrier railroads. Industrial and military railroads had no such stipulation. The 44-ton locomotive was born to skirt this requirement.
The loco is dual directional, and doesn't have much to differentiate between the "front" or "rear" expect for the air horn and exhaust stack on one end in real life. My LEGO model lacks these, so it's only way to tell which is front is by the headlights: clear for front, red for rear. Also, the four studs are supposed to say "OGEL" (that's the owner of the auto plant and the 44-ton loco) while 101 should go on the three studs for the loco's I.D. number.
This three level auto rack was originally found on LGauge .com as seen here. I redesigned that model and added tiny automobiles to fit into the racks. There is but a single plate worth of clearance between the automobiles and the rack above.
The automobiles are attached using 2 x 3 plates, put they are removable... if you take the roof of the freight car off first!
These tiny cars can seat a single figure each, and have two opening doors per car. The vehicles come in three color varieties, (red, white ,yellow) though a fourth (blue) is possible but is sightly more expensive.
NOTES: I hoped this factory would be of some use for some people, as the original always has been gathering dust in the basement since it was built, as seen below:
This is the original factory that was by my Dad around the years 2000 - 2004. it was built with parts from several Sand Red supplemental packs available at that time. It does not feature any interior, nor does it have a removable roof. But this thing is built STRONG: you have to really put your weight on it to press the roof together.
It has never been determined what this factory made in-universe, though for my own purposes in my younger years, I pretended it made beverages. What beverages, you ask? Why, Dr. Leg O. Brick's Root Beer of course!
LDD file for my version of the factory, two auto racks, GE 44 ton diesel loco, and 16 cars in three colors (red, yellow, and white) can be downloaded here.
Comments, questions, and complaints are always welcome!